Sharon Stone recounts her experiences as a struggling actress in her upcoming memoir ‘The Beauty of Living Twice’, and Vanity Fair has released exclusive excerpts from the book. The Golden Globe-winning actress, famous for her role of Catherine Tramell in 1992’s erotic drama, Basic Instinct, claims to have been “misled” by director Paul Verhoeven into shooting a scene with full-frontal nudity. She states that she wasn’t aware of the exposure of her genitals until she attended a screening with the lawyers and agents.
“After we shot Basic Instinct, I got called in to see it. Not on my own with the director, as one would anticipate, given the situation that has given us all pause, so to speak, but with a room full of agents and lawyers, most of whom had nothing to do with the project. That was how I saw my vagina-shot for the first time, long after I’d been told, “We can’t see anything—I just need you to remove your panties, as the white is reflecting the light, so we know you have panties on.” Yes, there have been many points of view on this topic, but since I’m the one with the vagina in question, let me say: The other points of view are bullshit.”
It didn’t matter anymore. It was me and my parts up there. I had decisions to make.
She further recounted her confrontation with the director, “I went to the projection booth, slapped Paul across the face, left, went to my car, and called my lawyer, Marty Singer. Marty told me that they could not release this film as it was. That I could get an injunction. First, at that time, this would give the film an X rating. Remember, this was 1992, not now, when we see erect penises on Netflix. And, Marty said, per the Screen Actors Guild, my union, it wasn’t legal to shoot up my dress in this fashion. Whew, I thought.”
“Well, that was my first thought. Then I thought some more. What if I were the director? What if I had gotten that shot? What if I had gotten it on purpose? Or by accident? What if it just existed? That was a lot to think about. I knew what film I was doing. For heaven’s sake, I fought for that part, and all that time, only this director had stood up for me. I had to find some way to become objective.”
Previously she had also mentioned how, six weeks before being cast in Basic Instinct, her manager had asserted that “no one would hire” her “because everyone said” she “wasn’t sexy,” she “wasn’t, as they liked to say in Hollywood at the time, “fuckable.””
